But what Kai didn’t do was what people normally do when they see a vaguely familiar face. Oh, hi, it’s you…how you doing, what’s happening? What they don’t do is pretend they barely know the person whose empty glass they refilled in another bar in another town.
Returning to her side, Kai passed Larissa a cold beer, which she suddenly didn’t want, and he asked her about food, which she didn’t want either, though not five minutes earlier she had complained bitterly of hunger, but now there were so many other things to complain bitterly about. The girl, surrounded by natives, looked ludicrously young, barely out of high school, though looking stupid enough perhaps never to have gone to high school. She had a vapid drop-out look about her, and too loud a laugh in a public place, a self-conscious, stare-at-me laugh. Her clothes were slightly baggier, though, than at Balcony Bar, the relaxed-fit jeans, the empire waist top falling loose from the over-exposed ludicrous breasts.
Turning her frozen gaze away from Cleo, Larissa leveled the stare into Kai’s expressionless face. He drank, sat calmly, smiled at her politely.
Larissa downed her beer in five gulps. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“Kai, what do you propose? That we sit in the bar all night till we have to go out in the morning? Let’s go back, climb through the window or something. Or try Billy-O again. Maybe he’ll pick up.”
Kai was inscrutable. “I’ll try him again. I’ll go outside so I can hear. But I’m starved,” he added. “I’m gonna get myself a sandwich. Sure you don’t want anything?”
“No, Kai. But thank you.” Always so polite. Larissa couldn’t sit anymore so she stood up and leaned against the wall, waiting for him, watching his back, the shape of his head, the crew cut of the kinky hair that had been too hot to keep long, and now he looked like a soldier with his tall reedy build, his buzzed dome. He looked like a different man. Certainly he behaved like one.
Cleo got up! She got up and toddled over to the bar, twenty feet long, ten of it unoccupied, but of course she had to stand right next to Kai, motioning to the bartender. Their heads didn’t bob or lean into each other as Larissa watched them from behind. It was noisy in the pub, sweaty and loud, and there was no tilting from them, no shoulder swaying, no recognition from their bodies. Kai was draped over the counter, beer in his hands, waiting for his sandwich, and she was standing sprightly, ordering another drink. If Larissa hadn’t been struck by her presence in the town where there were barely any people, she would’ve sworn under oath the girl and Kai were strangers, who happened to be standing at the bar at the same time ordering food and drinks from the same waiter.
And yet.
Unmistakably, the silent language of their bodies looked familiar, not foreign. They didn’t stand together like strangers. They stood together as though they were speaking without moving their heads.
Kai got his sandwich, paid, and returned to Larissa, food in hand. Their table had been taken so they stood by the wall. He offered her a bite, which she refused with arms crossed, and after he was finished, they left. In utter silence, they walked back to Billy’s place, where the doors were still locked and the lights were out.
They sat on the porch steps, waiting in darkness. But for what?
Kai called Billy again. This time the phone was picked up! The two men spoke briefly in man code. What up, dude. I’m sitting in front of your house, and I can’t get inside. He hung up the phone. “He’ll be here in a sec.”
“All the way from the outback, he’ll be here in a sec?”
“He came back with three horses. But he’s going back out again tomorrow morning.”
“So tell me,” Larissa said suddenly, “is that why you came here? For her?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Are you playing dumb with me?”
“No, I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Kai!”
“Larissa!”
The raised voices on someone else’s porch, in someone else’s yard. Larissa was sitting on the busted-up concrete steps, elbows on her knees. She wasn’t looking at Kai, she was looking at herself, out of her body, looking at herself, seeing the flash of dust that she was, the speck of person, sitting a thousand miles from the nearest ocean in the Southern hemisphere under the bright and clear sky on a desert island, thousands of miles away from other continents, other countries, ten thousand miles away from the highway that led to a street named Bellevue, a beautiful view, a road shaped like a horseshoe for luck, staring inside her brittle emptiness.
“Why can’t you be honest with me?” she asked quietly, not shouting, her voice not her own. “Why do you act like I’m an idiot and I’ll believe anything you say? I know I want to. I don’t want to think you’re lying to me, deceiving me. But we drive this far, and you tell me that you don’t know what I’m talking about when we run into the one person we’re not supposed to ever see again?”
“Why is she the one person we’re not supposed to see again?”
“Kai, how dumb do you think I am?”
“I don’t know the answer to that question,” he returned coldly. “But how dumb do you think I am? You think I’d bring you here if I was coming for her?”
“I don’t know. Would you?”
“What do you think?”
“Why do you keep answering every question with a question?”
“Why do you keep asking so many fucking questions?”
“Why is she here?”
“I don’t know! Am I her keeper?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“Oh, fuck!”
And then suddenly out of a neighboring house, a window flying open and a man’s grating voice: “Keep it down! It’s two fucking o’clock in the morning! Bloody fucking hell! People work during the day!”
They kept it down. Real down, like mute.
“She lives here, okay? She lives in this town,” Kai said quietly, through his teeth, looking at the ground. “You knew she lived here. What does that have to do with me?”
“Yeah, okay. Was tonight the first time you saw her since Jindabyne?”
“What? No. There’s only one bar in town. Clearly I’ve seen her, I come with Billy, she comes with her friends.”
“Then why didn’t you say hello to her? Why didn’t you smile and say, Hi, Cleo.”
“I. Don’t. Know. What. You’re. Talking. About.” Kai rubbed his face. “Why would I say anything to her? I didn’t say anything to the thirty other people in the bar either.”
“Yeah, okay, Kai.” Was that a lie? Was that the truth? Was it a lie that sounded like the truth? Was it the truth that sounded like a lie?
Not five minutes later, Billy-O’s busted pick-up truck pulled up. “Oh God,” he said, jumping out—or falling out?—springing over the short rusty fence, jingling his keys. “You been waiting long? Sorry.” He shook Kai’s hand, nodded to Larissa. He was obviously intoxicated.
“So why’d you lock all the fucking doors, man?” Kai said. “You always leave the back open for me.”
“I didn’t know you were—I forgot. Sorry, dude.”
They stepped inside the tiny bungalow with torn musty furniture. Larissa didn’t know why Billy would be locking anything. There was nothing to steal. Kai had been right: there was no place for Larissa here. There was barely room for Billy-O, with all the clothes on the floor and over chairs, the open containers of old food, the bags of chips, the cans of beer. “Sorry for the slight dis-array,” Billy-O said. “I’m saving up to buy a new couch.” As if those two sentences were in any way related. “Don’t worry, Larissa”—he burped—”I got a bed for you two. I’ll be fine right here.” He plopped down on the couch and started to roll a joint. “So what are you two up to? She gonna come with you? You gonna go out into the Mungo, Larissa? Ever been in the bush, darling?” He clucked his tongue as he lit up. “It gets hellishly hot out there. I know. I nearly died today. Don’t forget to bring a hat. You have a hat, don’t you? Kai, I
still don’t know how you think an unsuspecting tourist is going to spend six hours out there in the saddle. I think the business is going to go belly up in two days.” Billy tutted. “Well, Larissa can be our guinea pig. If she can do it, I say fine. Otherwise, I think you should limit the trail rides to an hour or two. The city folks ain’t gonna last. They’re not you and me, bro.”
“It’ll be fine,” said Kai, shaking his head at the proffered joint. Since there was no place for Larissa to sit, she didn’t, meandering awkwardly through the mess trying to find a place to perch. As she walked by the phone, a red number was blinking. She looked closer. The number said 7. As in 7 messages. She picked up the cordless receiver and studied the buttons. CID, one of them said. She pressed it. Sure enough, the caller ID numbers popped up, one by one. Carefully replacing the phone on the cradle, she straightened up to hear Kai and a slurring Billy-O arguing whether it was possible to get all the way from the stables to the holy grail of the National Park, the Great Wall of China lunette dunes, on horses. Billy-O was skeptical. He was also drunk, so he couldn’t win.
“You think the pampered crowds will remain on the horse in the godless heat? I don’t know what you’re thinking, dude,” Billy-O said. “I’m telling you, we should just do the safari ride and forget about the horses. The birds are still here,” Billy mused as he smoked the whole joint alone. “The cockatoos, the finches, also the kangaroos and jackrabbits. The ladies can take pictures, snap, snap. Them Americans love the kangaroos. The culling season hasn’t started yet, so not too much blood in the sand.” He chuckled.
“The horses is what’s going to draw the Internet tourist in, Bill,” Kai said. “Trust me. Because you’ve got too much competition in the vehicle tour area. Here, you’re offering something new.”
Larissa stepped away into the alcove kitchen. Kai kept telling her it was Billy-O’s idea to do the trail rides. Sure didn’t sound like it from that little snippet of dialogue. Looking for water, she opened the fridge. There was something awful and spoiled in it. It smelled like a dead snake. All she wanted was a cold drink. Billy-O called to her to drink from the warm tap. “Tomorrow we’ll get you some bottled H2O for the ride. Make sure you two bring enough of it,” he said.
Larissa walked back to the living room, and studied the two men sitting side by side, Billy-O, small, unassuming, tired, drunk and slightly drugged, saying, “Why are you in such a hurry to go tomorrow? I’m committed to Kelvin for the mustering run. I already got paid for it, so I can’t say no. If you wait a day, we’ll go together the day after tomorrow.” And sober Kai, laser-eyed on Billy-O, replying, “You have to submit the proposed courses to the tourism board tomorrow so they can post them online, remember?” And Larissa, perspiring, thirsty, exhausted inside and out, the prickles, the needles of jaundiced malign piercing her through a million pores in her skin, listening to Kai now and hearing him loud and clear then, his steady excited voice in her memory. It wasn’t even the past, it was the just-lived-through present! This morning he told her that Billy-O had called him from the bush and asked him for this favor. Yet Billy-O sat in his own house smoking and talking about the trails as if he’d forgotten the hastily arranged details—like asking for the favor in the first place.
Billy slapped Kai on the shoulder, glassy eyed, fuzzy-balled, unsteady even while sitting. Larissa continued to stand in the alcove between the kitchen and the living room.
“Bill, what time does the gas station open?” Kai asked.
“Eight.”
“Eight? You sure?”
“This is something I know very well. I run out of juice a lot.”
“Anywhere to get some gas now?”
“It’s two in the morning,” Billy said. “Who the hell is going to be up at this hour?”
“All right.” Kai stood up. “Come on. Give me a ride to the troopie. I need to get our shit out of there.”
“I’m in no condition to drive, dude,” said Billy-O falling back on the couch. “I’m in no condition to go anywhere…” His eyes were already rolling back.
“A great brumble culling you’re gonna have tomorrow.” Kai sighed. “Just give me the keys.” He turned to Larissa. “I’ll be back in a half-hour, okay?”
She waited for him until four in the morning. Billy was unconscious in a sitting position on the couch. The place was revolting. She couldn’t go and lie down in someone else’s bed. She perched in the corner of the sofa away from his stoned frame, and mindlessly stared at the dark, tilted to the side.
“Billy,” she kept whispering, “Tell me what’s going on. Tell me, what’s happening. Billy, can you hear me…?”
At one point she thought she heard Billy-O whisper back, Go, Larissa, leave tonight, don’t stay… But when she sat up to look at him, his eyes were closed.
She woke up to Kai shaking her shoulder. “Get up. We have to go. It’s already seven in the morning.”
As Larissa suspected, Billy-O did not want to go. Bleary-eyed herself, she stretched out her sore body and stared up at Kai, still in yesterday’s clothes. “What time is it?”
“Time to go.”
“You said you’d be back in a half-hour.” She struggled up. Billy was slumped on the other end of the couch.
“I was back. You were asleep. I tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t wake for nothing.” Kai made a disgusted face. “Plus Bill hadn’t changed his sheets, and I didn’t know where the clean ones were. I didn’t want you to sleep on that.”
“So you left me sitting up on the couch?”
“Better that than those sheets.”
But for some reason he didn’t look like he’d slept on those sheets either. She wanted to ask him if he got their things, if she should shower, if they would eat somewhere, get coffee. But she didn’t have the energy to ask. She didn’t have the energy to ask him anything.
8
Demon Ride
They didn’t leave the stables until nine in the morning. Billy-O became worried it was going to get too hot for them, that it was too late; they should stay an extra day and go out tomorrow. Kai said no. The route plan had to be in by the deadline, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to submit it for approval until the next tourist season. Larissa agreed. To stay one more day in Pooncarie was unthinkable.
What surprised her was Billy’s stable. To think that a man kept his own accommodation like a trash dump, yet the housing for his horses like the Ritz-Carlton, was paradoxical. Yet his stables were spotless, the horses clean, the hay in bins, the fresh water sparkling in metal buckets, the paddock fence strong and fixed. It all looked painted and repaired and very well tended. Billy loved his horses and it showed.
“So where are these famous white mares?” asked Larissa, looking through the stalls.
Billy-O showed her. “What do you think?” he asked. “You think two horses are worth a whole Ducati?”
Larissa didn’t know the answer to that question, though the large pale animals were very beautiful. But then so was the flame-orange bike. Kai hurried them from the stalls.
“When you return, just leave the horses in the paddock, they’ll be fine,” Billy-O said to Kai. “Don’t forget to feed them tonight when you come back. One bucket each, chaff and grain. You can give them carrots. And don’t forget to refill the water. It evaporates in the heat.”
“Don’t worry, man. I know what to do. I’ve been doing it for three months. I’ll take care of it.”
Leaning to Larissa, Billy said in a quiet voice, “Oh, he loves to go out on the horses, but taking care of the horses, not so much.” He saddled and bridled two tamed Walers, one gray and light for Larissa, a brick-brown medium for Kai.
“No white horses for us?” she said with a smile.
“No,” Billy-O said. “Kai says they’re for the tourists only—”
“We gotta go, Billy. Hurry up,” Kai cut in.
“These are better,” Billy told her. “They’re both mixed breeds. Since they bred in the wild, I have no idea of the pedigree. I cal
l yours light, Larissa, because it’s quick on its feet, not too heavy, but you see, it’s still a big animal.” Affectionately he patted Larissa’s horse’s nose as he adjusted the bit and the bridle. “They’re both excellent trail horses. Yours is especially docile. She is a seven-year-old mare. I can put six-year-olds on her. Right, Shiloh? Right, baby?” He kissed the horse, and then helped Larissa into the saddle. “You okay? Now, think about what you want to bring with you, what you want to leave behind. Because that jacket you’re wearing, you’ll get too hot in it after thirty minutes.”
“I get hot, I’ll take it off.”
Billy shook his head. “Whatever you wear out there is what you keep on, because you can’t take your hands off the reins for a second. You let go of the reins, you lose control of your horse.”
Larissa thought that was sound advice. She took off her jean jacket, and was left in a sheer white blouse.
“How’s Kai going to write things down about the trail if he can’t let go of the reins?”
“Don’t worry about me, Larissa,” Kai said. “I hold the reins with one hand, I write with the other. But let’s wrap this up. We really gotta get moving.” He sounded impatient from atop his chestnut Waler named Hal.
“She can’t go yet, man, she doesn’t know how to handle her horse. Sheesh.” Billy-O looked up at Larissa. “Now listen. You hold the reins in your left hand, you hold on to the horn with your right.”
“Why can’t I hold the reins in each hand?”
“You can try. But what are you going to use to steady yourself? Okay. Now listen. When you want to go left you pull the reins left and kick her with your right foot, when you want to go right, you pull right and kick left. When you want to stop, you pull up on the reins and yell ‘Whoa.’ When you’re in trouble, you yell ‘Yihah.’ Got it?”